Sabrina Bockler - "Coquette"
Hashimoto Contemporary is pleased to present Coquette, a solo exhibition by Brooklyn-based artist Sabrina Bockler. The exhibition will be Bockler's inaugural solo exhibition at Hashimoto Contemporary.
Opening Night Reception:
Saturday, June 29th
6pm - 8pm
The artist will be in attendance
Gallery Hours:
Tuesday - Saturday / 10am - 6pm
Exhibition on view through July 20th
Hashimoto Contemporary NYC
54 Ludlow Street
New York, NY 10002
Advance Collector's Preview:
An advance collector's preview will be made available online before the exhibition opens, if you would like to receive a price list, please contact us at nyc@hashimotocontemporary.com
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Sabrina Bockler, Hungry Hearts, 2024
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Sabrina Bockler, Venus in Furs, 2024
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Sabrina Bockler, The Alchemist, 2024
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Sabrina Bockler, Something Pretty, 2024
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Sabrina Bockler, The Sirens, 2024
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Sabrina Bockler, The Onlooker, 2024
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Sabrina Bockler, Loves Me, Loves Me Not, 2024
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Sabrina Bockler, Midnight Snack, 2024
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Sabrina Bockler, The Sweeter the Fruit I, 2024
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Sabrina Bockler, The Sweeter the Fruit II, 2024
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Sabrina Bockler, The Sweeter the Fruit III, 2024
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Sabrina Bockler, Love Potion, 2024
Potions, poisons, and the social power dynamics enabling their use may not scream “love,” but for Sabrina Bockler, elements of trickery, revenge, and class relations have underpinned ritual unions throughout European history. In Coquette, the Brooklyn-based artist’s latest solo exhibition at Hashimoto Contemporary, Bockler creates a new series of paintings that explore women’s treatment in romantic dynamics and how they reclaim their own power. Employing miniscule brushstrokes to denote each hair on a dog, petal on a flower, thread on a gown, Bockler’s nearly obsessive attention to detail creates alluring scenes of foreboding circumstances wrapped in love, chaos, and revenge.
"Coquette,” writes the artist, “refers to a flirtatious woman, one who enjoys attracting and manipulating others' affections for her own amusement or advantage.” Bockler’s human and animal characters are tuned into the morals framing how a woman uses her feminine characteristics: if it’s for pleasure, she’s depraved; if it’s to please, there must be an ulterior motive. The Alchemist, Bockler admits, presents the most clear-cut example of her inquiries into how women—in any romantic situation—are framed as the villains. In a frilly pink dress evocative of the Rococo Era, an anonymous woman holds a small rooster in her lap while dipping a dagger into a green love potion. The scene conjures the likes of Madame de Montespan, a French courtesan and mistress to Louis XIV who was accused of using love potions to remain in the king's favor, all the while accidentally poisoning him. Her breast slipping out of her dress, the figure is also an allusion to the portraits of Agnès Sorel, a favorite mistress of King Charles VII of France who was controversially portrayed as the Virgin Mary in 1452. Marrying the stories of women with femme fatale reputations into a single figure, Bockler’s paintings speak to the history of women using love as a path to power they would have otherwise never achieved, prompting questions of how desire and trickery are now used against women.
No conversation of love would be complete without a discussion of beauty—the power of seduction it affords and the objectification it invites. A playful take on Venus, “the original impossible beauty standard,” Venus in Furs depicts a female Bichon Frisé as the goddess of beauty, her caretaker attempting to cover her engorged nipples as a nod to the “absurdity surrounding the objectification and policing of women's bodies.” Meanwhile, The Sirens depicts a pair of female sphynx cats exposing their skin folds like performers atop a table draped in a forest green tapestry. Reflecting the vulnerability of the female form, Bockler’s tantalizing animals beckon us to look closer, returning our gaze as pocket-mirror versions of ourselves.
Coquette opens on June 29th with a reception from 6-8 pm. The artist will be in attendance. A limited edition print signed and numbered by the artist will be available for purchase exclusively at the opening. For additional information, images, or press requests, email NYC@hashimotocontemporary.com